So I posted back in June/July, check that post to see the long story, but it was about a issue I was having with Factory Hornady 108 ELDM and having some Popped Primers in my Savage Axis ll in 6ARC. What I noticed is there is 2 different "Types" of factory ammo 1 with Silver primers that are "softer" and were the ones Poppin and the Gold primers that are "harder" and I never popped those. After contacting Hornady and them basically saying it was a Carbon Ring cause'n over pressure...even though I told them my rifle was clean and even sent them borescope pics of a clean chamber and bore. Hornady said it had to be the rifle and not their ammo. I sent what they said and everything to Wade over at Ally Munitions/Texas Predator Hunting and we came to the conclusion that after seeing that the Savage barrels rifling was Garbage, even though the accuracy was great, that mabye the chamber was cut like Garbage and not to spec which was cause'n the Ammo to start out at max pressure for the get go. The crazy thing is Hornady loads the Factory ammo to spec of AR's which is lower PSI then what can be handloaded to bolt action specs. So I decided instead of contacting Savage, cause I changed Bolt Handles to a Glades Armory one and them sayin somethin "I did" causing the problem, and sellin it to give somebody else the headache. I just rebarreled it. I switched it to a E.R.Shaw 26inch 1.0 Bull Barrel it's a 1:7 twist instead of the Savage 1:7.5 twist. And it shoots great! No popped primers yet and just as good or better accuracy. The Silver primers gave me 50-60 fps faster then the Gold ones and the accuracy with the Silver is better which is what I have the most of being that Rural King sells them for $21.99 a box. But I have noticed I get about 2-4 flyers with each box of 108 ELDM's, like mabye cause of the extreme spread? but not sure yet. So far so good.
Here's some 200 Yard Groups. Silver vs Gold Primers.
Went out for a trip to change the chips on my trail cameras on Monday, and it was so nice and quiet in the woods that I decided to sit for a bit in one of my ground blinds made from cut logs and branches. Had a small spike respond to my grunt call, and he was hanging around within about 50 yards for over a half hour, so decided to stay till sunset. It started snowing which made it even quieter with there being almost no breeze at all. At a little after 4, I got chilly, not being dressed for a long sit, and stood up to help warm up. I noticed my rifle, which was leaning against a tree, had the objective side of the scope covered with snow. I cleaned that off and decided to hold it horizontally, so that wouldn't happen again. After another 5 minutes, right when I decided to leave, I caught movement out where that spike went, but it wasn't the spike. I could see antlers right away, and sat back down to get a better rest for a shot. He walked towards me from about 100-110 yards out and at about 50-60 yards I had a good lane, so I took a quartering towards me angle shot as he moved through that lane. Deer reacted to the hit and ran straight towards me, stopping at about 20 yards away and stood there. At that point I decided to get another round in the chamber, so I cycled the bolt on my Howa Mini, but the deer just slumped over and fell right there. My load was the Sierra 85 over CFE223 at about 2950. This didn't give the bang-flop that I hoped for, but I'm also not so sure about shot placement since he was moving when I shot.
Anyway, it's first blood for that setup, and I'm happy with the results.
Hope everybody has a great day, I just bought a 6mm arc full upper from Bear Creek, 24" stainless tube 8 twist. Hope to get out somewhere this weekend to stretch it out some, zero at 40y and took 5 shots to zero and then 2 shots to confirm. Shooting the 108 Hornaday ammo. 21.99 a box local but they don't carry any other weights. I am in the Knoxville area of E Tn. Hope to learn from everybody, I am retired so plenty of time between Dr appointments to shoot lol. 12 years military service, 1 son and 2 grandkids 18 & 19. anything hunting or fishing related are my vices these days.
Giessele Automatics has Peterson 6mm ARC brass. It's a little pricey compared to Starline brass but if it's as good as Lapua 6.5 Grendel brass was for converting to 6 ARC it might be worth the price. Geissele also has Alpha Munitions 6 ARC brass. I have some, it's good brass ... better than Hornady or Starline.
Was curious 'cause I hadn't heard Peterson was offering 6 ARC brass, I looked on their website. If they are making this brass, it's still not listed on Peterson's website.
I loaded up some Hornady 105 gr BTHP with some N540 using Starline brass. And I was spotting for my son while he was walking in on a target at about 500 yards out. As I was watching it seemed like some of the rounds were “spiralling in” (following a helical path) to the target while others were following a standard parabolic curve. From a reloading perspective, what did I do wrong to the rounds that were spiralling in?
Here are my results from the Hornady 105 Aero bullets. Batch #457 was 28.8gn(2720fps)and batch #458 with 29.0 gn(2735)fps both with Leverevolution. I didn’t do a seating depth test, I just seated them and the COAL was 2.308 and CBTO was 1.680. This is a custom bolt action, so there is no problem with the COAL with the magazine.
I have been a 6.5 Grendel fan for years and I always used 8208 XBR powder in my reloads.
However, recently I have decided to convert all my small primer Grendel brass into 6 ARC and I am just about ready to start reloading some more 87 grain V-max bullets.
I know that I can get great velocities with CFE223. I obtained almost 3000 fps ( just shy of that ) with the CFE223 in a 20 inch barrel!!!
However, I still have 8 lbs of 8208 XBR left over that I would love to use with this new round!
So does anyone here have any experience with that powder in the 6 ARC? Have you obtained decent velocities... accuracy? Issues?
Just curious.
I will appreciate any feedback.
The Hornady manual does say that max charge velocity with the 8208 is around 2650 FPS;
With the CFE223 its around 2800 fps... but like I said, I have chronographed mine up to around 2995 in a 20" Faxon barrel.
Anyway, thanks in advance for any constructive feedback!!!
